The Tao of Educational Insensitivity

Recently I ruminated on whether I had done anything racially insensitive in my past. I consider myself to be a cultured man, and one that is accepting of people of all creeds, and indeed that is the case. But, if I were to choose the closest I came to doing something racially insensitive, albeit unintentionally, it would be back in Grade 9 English.

You see, in February of whatever year that might have been we were all required to perform monologues as different African American luminaries. We put into groups based on the nature of the accomplishments of the individual we were assigned to present. I watched in horror as all of the people I would have wanted to present (MLK, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali) were chosen. At that point I would have settled for any person that I could recognize by name, but alas as I watched Eli Whitney assigned to someone else all of the names on the list of presentations that I could recognize. I even missed George Washington Carver, I could have made an altogether wicked-smart peanut butter themed presentation for that guy.

Alas, when my person came to be assigned, I was actually somewhat surprised that I recognized the name: Booker T. Washington.


Booker T. Washington: Renowned African American scholar, civil rights leader, and founder of Tuskegee University

But of course the reason the name was familiar wasn't because I had a basic understanding of african american scholarship in the early-20th century, but rather because I thought I had been assigned to do a presentation on this guy:


Booker T: Pro-wrestler in the WWF

Luckily, I didnt make the mistake of doing my presentation on the wrong Booker T. No no, instead I committed a much larger blunder. Not knowing how to present Booker T. Washington, having never seen him on tv or anything of the sort I did what I thought was reasonable and presented my report on him disguised as this guy:


Mr T: Former bouncer, turned pro-wrestler, turned actor, turned fool pity-er

In retrospect probably not the best idea. I dont recall being admonished for this in class. But, really what I did was present a report on one of the most accomplished African American scholars of the past century, punctuating each sentence with "I pity the fool". The reason I recant now is if the guy that had gone on after me had presented a report on gandhi while punctuating each sentence with "thank you, come again" i'd probably be pretty offended, so I feel the need to get that out there.